Slow Burn
by Animegirl1129
Summary: Michael/Jesse. Undercover fic. "You're going to kiss me, aren't you? That's totally how we're doing this, isn't it?" He asks, only it isn't really a question because ugh, Michael.


Slow Burn

_**First BN fic! Written for kittycrackers in response to hc_bingo prompt: hostages. Characters not mine, please enjoy! Comments are awesome.**_

* * *

"You have a plan, right?" Jesse asks, pacing the length of the small room he and Michael have been confined to. "Please tell me you have a plan."

"Does not panicking count as a plan, because if so, I totally have one."

Jesse throws his hands up because, really, Michael, really, now with the jokes? "Who's panicking? I'm just mourning the loss of another day off because doing favors for you and Sam never actually ends well."

Michael quirks an eyebrow at him. "Because all of your favors go so smoothly. I distinctly recall another hostage situation that involved my mom not too long ago, Jess."

And, okay, yeah. Fair enough. But Michael isn't the one who got pistol-whipped today so it's Jesse's turn to complain, thank you very much. "Still - do you have a plan?"

"Not yet."

* * *

It starts with a phone call.

Barry's number flashes on the screen of Michael's cell-phone, calling in one of many, many favors owed between them all. He requests a meet up at a nearby restaurant and within an hour, Michael's sitting across from him watching as Barry sips some sort of neon blue drink from an obnoxiously large glass. "Is this really a 64oz problem, Barry?"

"No. Look, Mike. This isn't even my favor. Not really. My cousin's boyfriend went missing. He called me to see if I could help, but it sounded a little more on the dangerous side, so I thought maybe you could lend a hand? He was last seen at a club, Versa? It's downtown somewhere, I think. Not really my scene. The police haven't found much, but it sounds like he's not the first one to go missing from the place."

"I'm hearing a lot of 'he's' in this explanation. Versa wouldn't happen to be a gay club, would it, Barry?"

Barry's attention wanders to the passing waitress. "It might be. Is that an issue?"

Michael sighs, because no, it isn't, but he's never going to hear the end of it from whoever he ends up dragging along with him. "I'll get on it tonight. Tell your cousin to steer clear of the place."

* * *

It's been more than 20 hours and they haven't slept. They can't, not with annoyingly irregular check-ins from three annoyingly efficient guards who are annoyingly good at not falling for the various attempts Michael and Jesse have made to escape.

Their latest act, one of desperation, has brought down the wrath of angry guards on them. They go after Jesse because Jesse is already injured the most and they are under the impression that hurting Jesse will also hurt Michael (it does, just not quite the way they're thinking). One of the guards holds him back (annoyingly securely, blast them all), another holds Jesse as still as possible, and the third pulls a knife.

That's new, and it makes Michael talk because he'd much rather be dragging an injured Jesse out of here than a body because not sure he can live with himself if he's the cause of that after everything that's happened with this job. "Hey, hey. Come on. We'll stop. We won't try to escape anymore, okay?" Lies, all lies, but he has to try. "Look, don't-"

The third guy holds the blade to Jesse's neck, lets him sweat for a second. "If either of you try anything again," the man warns, letting the blade bite a little bit just over a mark Michael left on him when this all started, "If either of you make a sound again," the blade moves down, slicing through the first few inches of fabric on Jesse's shirt to press over his heart instead, "then you die." He smiles, then, a wicked, demented, psychotic smile, as he pulls the knife away and back off. Jesse visible exhales, his shoulders dropping with relief as the distance from the knife-wielding lunatic increases. "Understood?"

Michael nods.

"Good." Then, instead of walking away, the jackass takes his knife and slices a long cut down Jesse's arm. He squirms, hisses in pain, and curses colorfully. "Had to be sure," the guy says, signaling the others to let go and leave. The three exit as swiftly as they entered and that leaves Michael and Jesse alone again, still trapped, more injured than before, and running out of ideas.

"It's not deep enough to have caused any life-threatening damage," Michael assures Jesse as he checks the wound over, tearing off pieces of his own shirt to wrap the wound, his hands lingering on Jesse's arm. "You won't bleed out and there's no nerve or muscle damage. You'll be okay."

Jesse nods, still clearly a little stressed out by that close encounter. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But that hardly negates the fact that it hurts like hell." He leans back against the far wall in the room, letting himself slide down until he's sitting. Michael slides down beside him, so close that their shoulders are touching. "So, what's Plan Z, because I'm pretty sure we're at that letter now."

"I'll let you know when I think of it."

* * *

Sam and Fiona are already at the loft when Michael returns from his meeting with Barry and the subsequent recon mission. The club, owned by some questionable persons of the mobbish-persuasion, has indeed had an alarmingly high disappearance rate lately. Counting Barry's cousin's boyfriend, five men have gone missing. There's been little to no police involvement in the case, worryingly so. The disappearances started two weeks ago and the latest (the boyfriend) was just two days ago. All of the missing persons disappeared from the bar, and in four out of five cases this happened despite having a friend or boyfriend present at the time.

He explains all of this to Sam and Fi, who rattle off suggestions and possible motives as he goes along.

"I'm going in tonight, but I need someone to-" his gaze shifts a fraction towards Sam, but that's as far as he gets because...

"No way, Mike. Not a chance. Not me. I love you, I do, but I am not kissing you. Ever. No."

"I wasn't planning on-"

"If anyone who knows any of my lady friends sees me in there, I will never be able to explain my way out of it. And it's not - I'm totally cool with guys being with other guys, but I don't want to be either of those guys." Sam rambles. "Take Fi. Girls go to those places all the time, right?"

Michael sighs, ignores the way Fiona's eyes light up at the prospect because of course she's down for watching a bunch of guys all night. "I would," he says, now that he's finally allowed to get a word in, "but it's a men's only club. And I'm pretty sure no one would actually believe Fiona were a guy even if she were dressed like one."

"So, that leaves you with Jesse. He'll be off work in an hour."

"I'm sure he'll be thrilled."

* * *

At 38 hours, Jesse's asleep - one of them might as well get some rest, as risky as that is with the head wound - and Michael's keeping watch. When the guards come barging in, only ten minutes after their last random check-in, something is obviously up.

"The boss is here," one of them barks, as Michael is wrangled and another goon crosses the small room to haul an unsteady Jesse to his feet. He sways, and the guards seem to take that as an attempt to escape as opposed to a return to consciousness, so they level him with a blow to the gut that doubles him over. This doesn't slow them down, though, as they half-drag Jesse out of the room after Michael. "He wants answers."

"We don't have any for him," Michael growls at them, trying to get a look at Jesse, to see if he's okay after that.

"Oh, but I bet you do," the one shoving him along dryly replies.

He and Jesse are ungracefully shoved into an office, the door quickly closed and locked behind them. Michael has about two seconds to consider raiding the room for anything that could possibly help get them out of this, but then a second door is opening and closing and a rather imposing looking man enters. He fits the 'mobbish' stereotype quite well, introduces himself as Miles, and demands, "just what the ever-loving hell were you two snooping around for in my office?"

Michael forces himself to focus, even though he's gotten kind of edgy after nearly two days of captivity in the small, dark room. "We weren't," he says, backing up and moving so that he's more or less in front of Jesse, who looks like he's either about to pass out or throw up. "It was unlocked, I swear. We were just looking for someplace, someplace private. That's all. We, we didn't see anything. So just let us go." He's back in full character now, a mask he let drop a little while they were being held. He'll need to play it up now.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah," Jesse chokes out, an arm curled protectively around his stomach as he manages to stand upright. He staggers forward a step, letting his other hand settle on Michael's shoulder. "Look, I just wanna take my boyfriend and go home, okay?" He leans into Michael, half for support, half for their act and hopes the room stops spinning soon. "So if you could panic about whatever we didn't see in your office without us, that'd just be awesome."

And then Jesse is staring at a gun because this is his life and this is Michael Weston and that first thing can never be easy when that second thing is involved and, "oh, come on," he whines, letting his head fall against Michael's shoulder, "not again with the weapons, come on."

"I've been gone for four days. I locked my office. The only - and please let me stress _only _ - key has been around my neck since then," So your story? I'm not buying it."

"Wait-" Michael starts to say, but he's not fast enough.

The sound of the shot echoes in the room as the bullet is blasted out of the gun.

* * *

Michael's waiting outside of Jesse's apartment when he gets off from work.

"Whatever you need me to do, can you please promise it will be done tonight? I have a very rare, very hard to get day off tomorrow and I would really prefer to spend it not getting shot at, blown up, or otherwise maimed." Jesse explains, as he lets Michael march him into his own living room. "Can we promise that?"

"If it can possibly be helped, yes, this will be done tonight."

"Great," Jesse says, a smile instantly plastered on his face, "where are we going?"

Michael tosses him a bag containing all the necessary items for a fake identity. "A club, go change into whatever you deem appropriate."

Jesse complies, disappearing into his room to do as told. He reappears just a few moments later in more casual-wear than his suit and tie work clothes, now clad in a v-necked tee and khaki shorts that make him look just like everyone else in Miami. "Jake Riker? Who named me after a prison? And why am I from Pennsylvania?"

"We're both from Pennsylvania," Michael answers, sharing his own counterfeit credentials, which name him Alex Hale. "Tourists."

"Background?"

"Tell you on the way."

And he does. He outlines the background of their aliases, the ones that Sam and Fi had way too much fun putting together, and by then, they're at the club. There's a line to get in, but not a long one. They only wait outside for five minutes or so before they make it in the door, walking into a semi-crowded room. Most people are dancing, others are gathered at the bar or lounging on an array of couches. The room is dark, with flashy strobe lights illuminating the dance floor in a wide array of neon colors. A few televisions are scattered around the couches and the bar, tuned to various channels, though the sound is off because it is impressively loud in the club, the speakers blasting with upbeat, bouncy dance music.

"Not bad," Jesse says, taking the place in. "To the bar?"

Michael nods, catching Jesse's hand and dragging him forward through the crowd until they're both leaning up against the bar. He orders a beer for himself (though he won't drink much of it if he can help it) and Jesse orders a club soda for himself, declaring himself the designated driver.

"Thanks," Michael says, tossing the bartender some bills before following Jesse over to the couches with their drinks. They sit closer than normal and Michael tosses an arm casually over Jesse's shoulder as he sips at his drink.

"So, any ideas here?"

"Just watch for a while," he says, eyes scanning their surroundings carefully. "There are offices in the back - we'll check those out in a bit, see if there's any information on the missing guys."

Jesse glances at him suspiciously. "And how exactly do you intend to do that?"

"We'll figure that out when we get there. I don't know what kind of security they've got."

Jesse nods, takes a long swig of his soda and leans back into Michael's hold.

Time passes slowly, sitting all cuddled up on the couch, making easy conversation with those around them, slipping in details about their made up lives in Pennsylvania and how fun this trip has been for them so far. No one seems to suspect anything is going on in the club, though one guy absently wonders where one of the regulars has been lately because he hasn't seen him around (the first to go missing, Michael and Jesse both know).

Eventually, they get up to dance, using the crowd on the dance floor to better survey the hallway to the offices. The fast music demands close proximity to one another, to an extent that they've never really had to deal with before, so it takes a bit of getting used to before they're moving along with everyone else. Jesse plays up the touching, letting his hands linger on Michael whenever the music demands any kind of shifting at all, but they still manage some recon. Helpfully, the bathroom is the same hallway and so it isn't guarded - at least by physical people who can punch and question and ruin plans. "Camera," Jesse mumbles, nodding to a space over the door they'll have to get through, as they're spun with the crowd. "And I'm betting it's locked."

Michael produces his sunglass-lock-pick from his pocket. "We can work around that."

"Now?" Jesse asks, when Michael's hands settle on his hips. "You're going to kiss me, aren't you? That's totally how we're doing this, isn't it?" He asks, only it isn't really a question because ugh, _Michael_. "You could've at least bought me dinner first."

"I bought you a club soda?"

"Guess I'm a cheap date, then," he says, laughing as he shakes his head in something like exasperation. He leans in then, kissing Michael because it's at least fun to catch the ever-stoic man off-guard whenever possible. He dives right in to it, like they've done this before because their supposed to have done this before and, well, it's surprisingly good. For a fake kiss.

Michael's hands are still on him, dragging up his sides to grip at his arms as they stumble-step their way off the dance floor and to the wall just off of the hallway. Michael pushes him up against it and seriously invades any semblance of personal space Jesse was still clinging to, his body all pressed up against him, keeping his arms pinned at his sides. More kissing. So, so, so much kissing and Michael is... really good at faking, apparently. Someone nearby catcalls at them and Jesse takes that for the incentive it's supposed to be and steps up his game, he breaks Michael's hold on his arms and sends his hands fisting into the material of the other mans shirt as he deepens the kiss, his tongue fighting with Michael's for control of the kiss.

"Not bad," he mumbles out, but then Michael's teeth are tugging at Jesse's bottom lip and maybe a groan escapes him before he can catch himself (it's been a while, okay? Don't judge.) but he hopes Michael just rolls with it, thinks it's part of the act. "Come on," he says, practically whining as he nudges Michael toward the hallway.

He pulls back, looking a little stunned himself as his hands settled on Jesse's hips. He's gripping handfuls of t-shirt as he backs up then, dragging him along behind him and Jesse is definitely inclined to follow after him.

"Keep your head down," Michael tells him between heated kisses as they pass the bathroom door, "don't want them to catch us on camera."

Jesse can do that. He can totally do that. Really. He lets Michael shove him back against the door (and, jeez, so much shoving), just off to the side so that he can work the lock while keeping up their charade. He brings a hand up, letting it settle on Michael's neck to block the camera's view of his face as much as he can and then he moves away from the kissing, shifting down the other man's jaw until he reaches his neck, sucking at the skin there. He takes pride in the way it makes Michael fumble his hold on the lock-pick (even though that is so far from a good thing) but it turns out okay (at least for the plan) because he apparently already had it unlocked and was in the process of opening it, so Jesse staggers backward through the door.

"Easy there," Michael chides him, catching him before he can land on his ass in the middle of the office. Luckily no one is inside of it, and no guards have come running yet, at least. A quick glance around the room shows no obvious cameras, so it's back to the kissing.

It's a serious impediment to the searching, but they need the cover-story should anyone come in. Anyhow, they have a back-up plan, too - Jesse pulls Michael over to another wall (and apparently he's going to have to claim some sort of major wall kink should anyone question this pattern of behavior) but it's only so he can slip a bug into the potted plant beside them. Michael covers the action by pining Jesse's arms yet again, this time on either side of his head and even though Jesse knows he could fight, could maybe get the upper hand on Michael and pin him to something for a change, he finds he doesn't really want to. At all.

But, he does. If only to get them over to the desk so that they can get a quick look at whatever's on it. He circles around Michael, let's the other man bend him over it and then lean all over him. Jesse's focused enough to glance at the papers scattered about on the desk, though they don't look of much importance - not exactly a surprise as those of the mobbish persuasion are not known for being _idiots_ after all - but then maybe he's not so focused because apparently he is not the only one being affected by this act, given what parts of Michael's body are pressing against him right now.

Jesse moves to stand up, to maybe put them in a less compromising position because he doesn't want to push Michael with this, but it kind of has the opposite effect, given that moving just results in more contact and then Michael's hips rock against him, so quickly that he'd swear it was some sort of involuntary reaction.

Michael's mouth descends on his neck and Jesse feels teeth bite at his skin, hard enough to leave a visible mark, though not enough to break the skin.

Another attempt to shift (perhaps on purpose this time) earns him another hip roll and then Michael's growling out a barely audible, "Jess," and the fact that he lets the aliases drop definitely says something about just how much this is getting to him. "We should-" Jesse doesn't think he's going to say 'stop' because while that would be logical, it would also end their plan, so he's not exactly surprised when Michael gives up on the sentence. "Just..."

"Just come on," Jesse finishes for him, reaching back to pull Michael forward so that his chest is pressed flat against Jesse's back because they totally need more contact right now. Things have already gone way too far with this, they're both beyond the point where they can just walk away from this without the awkwardness, so they might as well finish it before angry thugs come to investigate. Besides, it feels _good_ and it's been so long and Jesse would be kidding himself at this point if he said he didn't want it.

Before they can do that, before they can finish what they started and get some relief, things go straight to hell.

Someone rips Michael off of him, so hard that he stumbles back a few steps before he catches himself. Jesse's pulled up, too, and some asshole gets a grip on the back of his neck like he's some sort of dog and "hey, what the hell, man?"

"What are you doing in here?" One of the angry thugs demands of them, as another wrangles Michael into an efficient hold. It says a lot that they hadn't heard the guards approach, hadn't noticed them at all until it was too late. "This area is off-limits!"

"My boyfriend and I just wanted some privacy," Michael says. "If you didn't want us in here, you should've locked the door or something. Put up a 'keep out' sign, jeez. We're not mind readers."

The guards exchange looks, but the one who seems like the leader is not convinced. "Take them. Lock them down til the boss gets back. We're not taking any chances."

"Hey!" Jesse shouts out, struggling against the hold his captor has on him because as much as he wants to save the guys who were kidnapped, he doesn't really want to join them. "You can't do this to us! People know we're here - and, and, and we're supposed to go back to Pennsylvania tomorrow night, you can't do this."

"Watch me," the leader says, raising a gun (and, oh, look, that's new) and smacking Jesse over the head with it. He turns to Michael then, "Do I need to hit you, too? Or should I just keep hitting your blabbermouth of a boyfriend?"

Michael stays silent as his pockets are emptied, his wallet, cell phone and sunglasses all confiscated. The same is done to Jesse, who's lost consciousness after the blow to the head.

"Take them out the back."

* * *

Since the gun is not aimed at him, Michael's first instinct is to leap forward, to disrupt the angle of the gun so that the shot goes wild. But, since the gun is aimed at Jesse and Michael's not up for taking any risks where he's concerned right now, he takes a different course of action.

He shoves Jesse backwards, a move that will surely send him to the floor with his present injuries. It goes a little off-script when the bullet grazes his own arm, but that's certainly better that than Jesse's head, so Michael's counting it as a win.

"I think you've done enough damage," Michael growls out, voice unwaveringly solid.

"Yeah, well. I don't think you two are together. I think you're working for someone, trying to expose me."

"I don't even know who the hell you are!" Michael roars back, desperately clinging to his cover because they have no plan B here.

"Do you even know who you are? Because your ID's? I had them checked out with some friends in Pennsylvania, turns out Alex Hale and Jake Riker don't exist. So who the fuck are you two?" Before Michael can keep bullshitting, though, Miles continues on his tirade, veins pulsing in his neck as his fury escalates. "The police raided two of my warehouses last night. I wonder how they found out about those, don't you? You and your overly-talkative boyfriend have cost me a shit-ton of money and I don't take well to people who cost me money."

He's not really sure what to do with the warehouse-raid thing, because he's been too busy being held hostage to know just what their bug picked up in the interim, but this does not seem to be going well for he and Jesse.

"We're not-" Michael starts to say, but he's about a second too late in noticing someone toss a flash grenade into the room via an overhead window to react accordingly, so mostly he ends up falling all over Jesse on the floor when it suddenly goes off. "Stay down," he hisses, as though Jesse has any sort of choice in the matter when Michael's laying on top of him.

The flashbang makes it impossible to see anything other than blinding white lights for several seconds or hear anything other than the ringing (following the obnoxiously loud bang, of course) for quite a while. It also nicely impairs balance as it throws off the fluid in the inner ear, providing ample opportunity for the cavalry to burst in amongst the chaos. In this case, it's Fiona and Sam, though there are sirens rapidly approaching in the distance.

"Come on, let's get you two out of here," Sam's saying, hauling Michael to his unsteady feet whilst Fiona helps Jesse up. They're both leveling impressive weaponry at Miles, who's still on the ground recovering from the effects of the stun grenade.

And then they're free.

* * *

Later, after they've recovered their hearing, cleaned up, and dealt with their respective injuries, Fiona and Sam explain how the chaotic situation went down.

They explain how the bug that Jesse planted picked up on the (not-so-annoyingly efficient after all, so hah!) guards talking about one of the warehouses being used to hold the hostages, how it was such a pain to drive to from his home north of Miami.

Sam had been somewhat delayed on catching the chatter, and they'd both been waiting for Michael and Jesse to return from the club before they made a move and then it took something like forever to get in touch with someone who would a) believe them and b) be capable of doing something about it to act on the information that wouldn't immediately get everyone involved killed on the spot. It'd taken a while, something like 18 of the thirty some odd hours they'd spent in captivity to raid the warehouse, whereupon only three of the five men had been found - all okay, if a little worse for wear. Luckily that warehouse had led to a second warehouse, where the other two hostages were being held. Motive had been sketchy at first, up until one of the victims explained that they were being ransomed off to their (moderately wealthy) friends and boyfriends for something like 200 grand each and the standard 'don't go to the cops or else' ultimatum had been put in play. Miles' financials backed this up, (once Barry finally managed to find his well-hidden accounts, at least) as did the other victims accounts of what had happened.

All in all, the police wrapped everything up nicely, though Fiona and Sam had made sure to get to the third listed warehouse before they could and stage their own assault. Miles and his thugs had been arrested and were awaiting arraignment and the job was done.

Fiona and Sam leave Michael and Jesse alone at the flat to go make Barry aware that everything's been worked out now, and to remind him of this incident should any complicated favors pop up in the near future.

"So," Michael says, glancing up from his cup of blueberry yoghurt to instead inspect the patch-job Sam did on his shoulder wound. "About all the stuff that happened at the club..."

Jesse looks up at him, kind of hunched over the counter in such a way that his bruised ribs do not loudly protest the position. He's got an ice-pack to his head with his uninjured arm and yeah, this is not fun at all. "What about it?" He asks, figuring this is the part where Michael requests that he forget all about it and they all pretend it never, ever happened.

Instead, Michael's putting on his guarded face and trying to act all nonchalant. "Uh, just. If you wanted it to happen again..." he says, awkwardly glancing around what passes for his kitchen as if he's never seen if before. "We could do that."

"Huh." Jesse replies because yeah, Michael and Fiona have been set to off for a while in their 'on-again-off-again' relationship, but he hadn't actually been expecting that.

"Not a very informative answer, there, Jess."

He grins, "yeah, we can do that." And the next thing he knows, Michael's on him again, kissing him from across the counter and pulling him in, only, "fuck, ow, _ribs_, dude."

Michael apologizes, circles around the counter and tries again, a less demanding kiss this time (and, okay, first one of those in all of this, but still cool, Jesse will admit).

"Hold off a few days and you can go back to shoving me against whatever surfaces you deem appropriate, okay?"

"Okay," Michael agrees, and Jesse tries to ignore him grinning against his mouth, because, ugh, _Michael_ and yeah, this - this is totally his life now.

"Okay."


End file.
